All Hail the Broken Hearted
by RionahAnha
Summary: The neighbors are all around, still in their damn pajamas, some of them sipping coffee from cups and all of them talking, chattering, like some young girl didn't just die in there for no reason at all. Dean wants to hit them all. Tag for 1x01, "Pilot." Rated T for language.


_**Disclaimer: I wish.**_

At first, Sam doesn't speak.

Dean leaves Sam perched on the hood of the Impala while he goes to consort with the police, with the fire fighters, with the neighbors spilling out of their houses all along the street, wrapped in robes and shod with slippers, murmurs of shock, of concern rippling through them like a wave in a baseball stadium. Dean saw that once, with Bobby, when he was thirteen years old-

There's a hundred questions to be answered, a hundred faces to put to memory, a thousand legal pads darkened with chicken scratch, statements taken in the blaze of the still burning house. Dean goes like a robot from one spot to the next, never too far from the Impala, from Sam who is rigid against the fender, his face shuttered against the destruction of his life, his shoulders shaking. Dean re-routes himself, leans in close to his brother. "Are you cold?" He asks, gently. "You want my jacket?" Sam doesn't look at him, doesn't answer. Dean heads back towards the house.

An officer stops him when he comes too close. "Can't let you any closer, son," she says, and Dean springs away from the hand outstretched at his chest. He's wired, his nerves shot, thrumming like a thousand lightning colored sheaves eddying in the wind. The flames are muted, pale oranges and red tongues blossoming through a wall of smoke. The air tastes acrid, charred, alive.

"My brother's house," he says thickly. He's not sure what else to say, how to ask it: _Did you find her? Is there anything left?_

The cop shoots him a startled look. "He isn't-"

"He's there." Dean points a finger to the shadows of the street, where Sam is catatonic, his features washed the color of pale stone in the streetlight he sits under. "He's- I got him out."

The officer looks at him, a kind of long look on her face, and Dean can see the accusation there, plain as day. _But not her_.

"We'll have to speak with him," the officer says softly. She steps onto the sidewalk, draws Dean closer to her, to the dwindling inferno. "One of the rescue workers did find a body," she whispers. Dean shakes himself away from the image: blonde hair, blue eyes, white nightdress burning and bleeding on the ceiling.

"His girlfriend," he offers at last, and the policewoman nods slowly, evenly. Dean might be imagining it, but he thinks he sees something there, glimmering in her eyes.

"You ought to see to your brother," she suggests. "The detectives should be along soon."

Dean goes back to the Impala. Sam is silent and limp, pliant like a wet noodle and shaking furiously. Dean hunts in the back seat, finds a blanket that smells only a little like it needs to be washed, and tries to hang it around Sam. It slides off his shoulders to the hood of the car to the ground, where Dean lets it lie. Sam doesn't look at him.

He's not sure how long they sit there but the detectives arrive soon. They're in polos and sweaters, sneakers instead of the usual wing tipped shoes. One of them flicks a recorder on and addresses Dean like Sam isn't even there. "He okay?" He asks, and Dean thinks he should punch him. He should, but he doesn't. He jostles Sam's elbow with his own.

"Sam. Sammy. Wake up."

Sam shakes himself. He's alive suddenly: dark eyes darting around, from the smoldering house to the fire trucks to the neighbors to Dean to, finally, the detectives. He palms his hair out of his face, skittish, his movements jerky like a frightened colt's. "Yeah?"

They ask him a few questions, the usual things like "Where were you when the fire started?" and "Do you have any idea what might have caused it?" and Sam plows through the questions like a pro, spewing out the bullshit fast enough to impress Dean a little. But only a little, because Dean knows Sam, knows that his hands aren't crammed between his thighs for warmth but because he can't stop shaking; knows that the weird glint in his eyes isn't shock or even really grief, but terror, sheer unbridled terror, because the stuff of their childhood nightmares, the objective of their father's entire life's work is back and it's here. This isn't the first time someone's burned over Sam's bed.

It only takes a few minutes for the detectives to Sam to wear down, for the questions to whittle away whatever strength or reserve Sam has managed to dredge up. Dean sees it long before they do, sees the crumbling in his brother's shoulders, the sudden slag of his face, and steps up. "I think that's enough for now," he says, and the detective with the recorder nods at him, in a sudden flash of empathy.

"There's a motel," he tells Dean, "A few blocks over, on Los Rueggoes Drive, if you wanted to take him somewhere."

Maybe he has a little brother somewhere, Dean thinks. Maybe he gets it. He nods, but Sam shakes his head, stands. His fists are curled into the seams of his jeans.

"I got to go," he says, and Dean puts out a hand, catches him by the elbow.

"Sammy-"

"I have to tell her family. Her mother-" The words catch in his throat and stop there, choking and tangled up in a sudden sob. The other detective looks from Dean to Sam, shakes his head slowly.

"Son," he says, "That's our job, all right? You go with your brother for tonight. Okay?"

Sam blinks and looks at Dean, looks at him like he's just now realizing he's even there, like it's the first time he's seen him tonight and something closes off, breaks down. He jerks out of Dean's grasp and goes to the back of the Impala, pops the trunk.

Dean looks hopelessly at the detectives. "Los Rueggoes?" He asks, and they nod, move along. Dean takes a few more minutes to watch the dying of the fire. The neighbors are all around, still in their damn pajamas, some of them sipping coffee from cups and all of them talking, chattering, like some young girl didn't just die in there for no reason at all, like that fucking thing didn't just come back and rip the rug out from underneath his little brother's feet, like that fire isn't just burning wood and metal and furniture, but stuff less tangible: Sam's hopes and dreams, Jess's desires and needs. Dean wants to hit them all.

Its two o'clock in the morning and the streetlight is thrumming above his head when he goes back to the Impala, where Sam is impassively rummaging through the bottom of the Impala's trunk, rosary beads spilling over his fingers like tangled webs of blood. He throws down the sawed off he held just a few hours ago, fixes Dean with that sheet-of-iron face, and says, "We've got work to do." He slams down the trunk and Dean catches ahold of his arm, forces him still. Sam stares at the hand on his arm like it's an alien thing, and Dean slackens his hold.

"We do," he says, "But not now." Sam opens his mouth but Dean continues: "There's a motel, man. Come on." He adds, "You need a shower," as if some Dove and hot water are going to fix anything at all.

Sam complies. He folds himself into the passenger seat and is silent the entire way there. He sits in the car while Dean gets a room key, and when they find the room, get their stuff out of the back seat and open the door, Sam breaks as soon as they cross the threshold, just like Dean knew he would. There's no warning: the keys jangle in the door, the light stammers on, and Sam goes to his knees, goes down on all four, and sobs open mouthed, his body shaking feverishly, his grief sharp and barking.

Dean gets the door closed and his stuff down and he gets, somehow, Sam back on his feet, drags him across the room to the bed, and holds him up while Sam weeps, spewing out mouthful after mouthful of meaningless words. He folds over, shaking, and Dean fights to keep him upright, fights to keep him from falling face first into the rug, like he seems prone to do. He crushes his little brother to him and feels the wild thrumming in his arms and torso, the spasms of grief twitching in his legs and fingers. He's not sure if touching Sam's the right thing to do, not sure if they still have a connection after all of this time, but it's the only thing he knows to do, and so he does it.

He doesn't count the time till it's over, till Sam slumps bonelessly against him. Dean angles himself away, stretches Sam flat over the flowered bedspread. Sam's face is dark and swollen, his neck and ears still ringed with soot from the fire, and Dean wipes at them with the cuff of his shirt. He never wants to see that on Sam, never again, as long as he lives.

He turns out the light and sits beside Sam until the light through the slatted blinds turns red with the rising sun, until Sam's breathing peters out, until the shaking stops. Then Dean covers him with a blanket and lays down in his own bed, closes his eyes against the brightness of the new day. On the other bed, Sam stirs. He's awake, he hasn't slept yet and probably won't for hours yet, but all the same, he doesn't speak. Dean doesn't press the issue. Chick flick moments aren't really his thing, but Sam is, and when he's ready to, Dean will be there.


End file.
